For most of the past half century, the livable scale of buildings in
Washington Heights and Inwood that makes our community so distinct—and beloved—has been almost completely unspoiled by development.
Even the construction boom which has swept the five boroughs in recent years has largely left northern
Manhattan intact.
But signs are everywhere that this is finally about to change.
No fewer than a half dozen large-scale development projects are now on the drawing board in our community—featuring towers that will be double or even triple the heights of surrounding buildings.
For decades the nearly complete lack of vacant land here uptown has made new development impractical. But the white-hot real estate market has now turned sites with parking lots, rocky terrain, and even existing low-scale buildings into economically feasible targets for new construction.
On 172nd and Broadway, the Taco Bell has been closed to make way for a 14-story office building. On Sherman and Broadway, next to Ft. Tryon Park, a 2-story building housing City offices will be coming down soon to make way for 12 floors of high-end condos. The owner of the single-floor commercial building on 187th St. between Cabrini Blvd. and Pinehurst Ave. is rumored to be considering knocking down the existing structure to put up a 7-floor residential building.
And then there is the mother of all development projects: a 23-story behemoth proposed for 184th St. and Overlook Terrace.
This site is currently covered by a large rock outcropping that until now has made it impractical for construction. But soaring real estate values have turned even this unlikely plot into a potential goldmine, and the developer has chosen to shoot for the stars—literally—with a tower of unprecedented scale which would dwarf the surrounding neighborhood, blocking light and air. The structure as proposed would straddle the subway tunnel on Overlook and would abut buildings that are as much as a century old and sit on stilts, raising serious structural and seismic concerns. The new tower would even have an entrance on Ft. Washington Ave., thus placing it in the already severely overcrowded zone for PS187.
In September, the Buildings Department rejected a first draft of the plans, but NOT BECAUSE OF ITS HEIGHT. The City only cited technical complications which the developer is likely to have addressed on the next submission. Remarkably, there is nothing in our city’s (antiquated) zoning code which prohibits such a gargantuan project.
But our neighborhood has a chance to change that.
New York City’s Charter offers a framework that communities can use to create plans for their “growth, improvement, and future development”. These so-called “197a” plans (named for the section of the City Charter) have been used by communities around the city to put new zoning guidelines in place that call for all new development to be in scale with the existing neighborhood. East Harlem has such a plan in place. West Harlem/Hamilton Heights is well on its way to implementing one. Washington Heights and Inwood deserve the same.
Now is the ideal time for you to make your voice heard in this debate, as a group of urban planners at City College have undertaken research to prepare for creation of a 197a plan here, and they want residents’ input. Click here to print out the feedback forms which you can mail in.
Sadly, it is probably too late for a new zoning plan to block the super-sized projects now underway in our community. But if left unchecked this current wave will turn out to have been only a prelude to an even larger, more damaging, boom in overdevelopment. So if we are to assure that our community remains livable for the NEXT half century, the time to act is now.
